


Perhaps we are halves of the same star

by llythl



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Humor, Hasetsu, Identity Reveal, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-02-05 20:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12801957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llythl/pseuds/llythl
Summary: He does not know how to say, "I was supposed to go to you."He does not know how to say - "You should know me," - and there is an accusation in that one, but he is not sure who it blames.Yuuri's injury pulls him from the fated GPF. But Victor finds him anyway - and fails to recognize him.Canon-divergent: Where those who are meant to - find each other in the end.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So instead of working on That April (you were knowable) like I should have I went and did this. I am only a little sorry. Who doesn't love identity reveals?

When Yuuri comes home five years later, he has a walking stick in hand but zero medals to his name.

It does not add up, he muses to himself as he waves off a staff member's offer to assist him down the escalator. After the fateful decision, the money and time, it just does not add up.

He has twenty unread messages - nineteen from Phichit, effusive and concerned, and one from Celestino, gentle and carefully worded - but also concerned. Yuuri spares them a lingering glance, before shoving his phone into the deep recesses of his pocket.

"No, I've got it. Thank you," his mouth stumbles over Japanese - his first since landing. They turn over in his mouth strangely, and his jaw moves experimentally, chewing down on nothing. The old man who spoke to him gives him a strange look, but moves on with a polite nod. He had offered to carry the duffel bag for him, but Yuuri is very good at drawing lines.

"Ah!" There is a shout that bursts above the hum of the crowd. He lifts his head just in time to see someone barreling towards him like a storm. His eyes widen and he opens his mouth to say, "Minako-sen-" only he doesn't get to finish because he is being enveloped in a bone-crushing hug, the kind that bruises ribs and squeezes the heart tight. If tears prick his eyes, no one would ever know.

"I told you wait above the escalator!" She nearly shouts in his face. Dazed, Yuuri stutters out a meek apology that Minako probably doesn't hear because she is fussing over his luggage. ("You could have sent these over with the other things. Why are you carrying so much stuff?")

"Um, souvenirs?" He barely manages to say before she tears him away from the wall. The force of her pull nearly knocks Yuuri off his feet. It's been so long - he had nearly forgotten Minako's characteristic way of sweeping through life - hers and his. It draws a small smile to his lips. 

Once Minako has them safely installed in her car, she turns her gaze to his leg. Yuuri is almost relieved. He had been on the edge of his seat the whole flight over, in anticipation of this moment.

"Oh, Yuuri," she says to him, and suddenly she looks and sounds her age. Gone is the storm. There is only dust left. Yuuri ducks his head a little sheepishly.

"It's not as bad as it looks, really," he says softly. His fingers tap an anxious staccato on his knee. The cane lies across his lap, a silent reminder.

It was almost funny, if he were to think about it in retrospective. His feet had spent most of their life on the ice, but when it had truly mattered, they failed him anyway. It was November, and the air had bitten sharp and cold that day, while the streets were frosted over almost beautifully. Yuuri had been running late, and running he was, till he slipped and fell. It is one thing to slip up on the rink and make a spectacular fall, but it is quite another to do it on the icy concrete.

The timing had made it all the more comical. It had been a mere three weeks to the Grand Prix Final. But the doctor's decision had been swift and final. Ligament injury. Two months off ice. At least. Before Yuuri had begun to process the ramifications of this, he was officially withdrawn from competition.

He still has those plane tickets, buried somewhere beneath the jumpers and socks in his suitcase. They are well-worn around the edges from Yuuri's constant thumbing. When he bought them, he had spent every spare moment studying the computer-generated text, had memorised the way each line curved to spell out the destination. Celestino had no one to bring to Sochi that year. 

(But he had meant to.)

"I've been working with a physical therapist," Yuuri told Minako as they pulled out of the parking lot. "And I was allowed back on the ice five weeks ago. Though...I aggravated the injury last week. So I'm stuck with the cane again." Celestino's disapproval had been painfully palpable. Yuuri knows he is his own worst enemy.

Minako echoes his own insistent tapping on the steering wheel. Hers is steadier, a heartbeat-like rhythm. "I'm familiar with certain rehabilitative exercises," she hums. "Especially those for retraining the leg muscles. I will help you."

His fingers pause and settle. An exhale shudders itself out of his lungs and he blinks in surprised. He hadn't realised he had been holding it. 

"Thank you," Yuuri says.

...

Yuuri did not plan on coming home. Not yet anyway. Coming home was a conclusion to a story he had panned out in his head, some five years ago when he hopped on a plane to Detroit and never looked back. That story included a particularly demanding yet specific climax in which Yuuri stood atop a podium. Bonus points if one particular Russian skater was standing beside him. Some days he imagines himself standing above, some days below. It depends.

But here was Yuuri rushing headfirst into the conclusion, and it felt immensely dissatisfying. No one had ever accused Yuuri of being less than ambitious.

Celestino in particular would be the last one to accuse him of that. It had been his fifth week back on the ice and anything more ambitious than a triple was still off limits to Yuuri. But while Yuuri sat in Detroit nursing his ankle and doing waltz jumps - waltz jumps, seriously - the competitive season swept by. And he could not just stand by and watch. 

He had waited till Celestino got called out of the rink, then he launched into a triple axel. It was badly under rotated but it landed. His body queued itself up for another before he even realized it. Celestino had found him lying prone on the ice. What followed is a bit of a blur now, but there had definitely been a second visit to the doctor. But Yuuri knows that that was Celestino's tipping point - if not his - because the next day his coach had sat him down over coffee to discuss expectations. Then he called Yuuri's parents and sent him packing.

"A month. At least," Celestino had told him with a stern gentleness Yuuri was sure he did not deserve. "You need to rest and recover your leg. I admire your determination, Yuuri - it is the thing that has taken you this far. But you will kill your ankle at this rate, and then your career." There was no malice in his words, only truth. Yuuri could only look away, ashamed. Apologies were meaningless here.Then Celestino had made his final verdict, "You will go back home. You will rest. When you are ready, you can come back. And then I will take you back to the Grand Prix Final next season."

There was no way Yuuri could not listen. He was as easy a student as he was difficult.

So here was Yuuri, once upon a time a Grand Prix Finalist, creeping back to his childhood home, legs buckling beneath the weight of shame and a bag stuffed to full capacity with souvenir gifts.

"Ah! There you are," he hears Minako say. His teacher sweeps towards him and snatches the bag away, and then his wrist. "I told you to wait for me while I parked the car. Why are you going by the back entrance? And what did you put in this thing?"

Yuuri does not get to answer because she is dragging him back around to the main entrance, which he had taken explicit pains to avoid. He is filled with a strange sense of dread and yearning as they enter. Nothing has changed, but he has - and he is not sure how.

"Hiroko!" Minako hollers through the doorway. "I've brought him!"

There is a muffled sound from down the hall, followed by the pattering of feet. Yuuri sets his cane to the side - far to the side - and straightens.

"I'm home."

...

 

Yuuri had not allowed himself to think about a lot of things while he was gone. He had placed a self-imposed embargo on memories, on thoughts, on wants. It was easier to skate when you weren't carrying any baggage. 

But standing in his childhood home now, everything he had kept from thinking of - wishing for - comes rushing at him, demanding to be heard. It is in the way his mother pats him over, his arms, shoulders, face - as if to assure herself he was the same boy she sent away. It is in the way his father tugs his coat off and hangs it up for him. It is in the way his sister greets him as if he had just come back from a convenience store-run, rather than a five-year trip abroad. Even regular visitors to the inn - whom had been around since he was young and perhaps even before then - call out to him as he wanders around. 

Hasetsu was absorbing him back into its ebb and flow without question. They simply let him fall back into the gap he left. As if he never left.

It makes him uneasy.

He finishes his Katsudon with no little enthusiasm under the fond watchfulness of his parents. His sister nudges his leg with a toe. 

"So what's the deal? Looks pretty whole to me," Mari says. The question draws his parents' interest, and Yuuri clears his throat.

"I injured the ligament in my ankle. It's pretty common," Yuuri replies. The truth is a lot more complicated but Yuuri does not want to have that conversation with his family, as much as he loves them.

"Thank goodness it wasn't something more serious," his mother says and his father nods sagely. "We thought it would be worse. Especially after it got you pulled from the finals like that..."

There is an uncomfortable silence that Yuuri senses only he is feeling. He pushes a smile out, "It happens."

"There's always next year," his father says wisely. 

But what if next year is too late? The question taunts him all the way to the rink. His family did not look approving when he announced he was going to practice after dinner, but they hadn't stopped him either. 

He starts off slow, before breaking into a full jog. His ankle is fine, has felt fine for weeks, but Yuuri does not quite believe his body sometimes. But he has even less faith in other parts of him, physical and non-physical so there's nothing new there.

Ice Castle looked like it could be frozen in time. As he jogs up the steps, Yuuri could almost believe he had returned to an old summer where he dogged Yuuko and Nishigori's heels as they raced to the top. Yuuri was never the first. But he never had to catch his breath once he reached the top either. 

Even the inside felt like stepping into an old dream, one he had tucked into a corner in his mind and forgot to give a regular dusting. Paint cracked in a familiar framework of spidery lines down the walls. The bench had the same Pokemon stickers that littered the locker room during the summer that he and Nishigori became obsessed with the show. The same fern that stood guard like a potted sentinel near the rink doors was there, unchanged. Nothing felt like it could be real, but everything was.

He could feel his heart squeeze with something unnameable, and impossible to explain.

Yuuko waits for him at the rink doors while he changes, then presses the keys into his palm with a secret smile. "I have to go home first, the girls are waiting," she says sweetly, just the way he remembers. Her smile and voice were unchanged but everything else about her felt different. He blinks. "Girls..."

"They cannot wait to meet you," she promises. "I'll bring them soon, with Nishigori. We have to catch-up. Oh, Yuuri. It has been so long hasn't it?"

Too long. Too long for nothing at all. 

The rink looks the same too, but like an old t-shirt, it feels a little too small, or perhaps a little too big. But there is an undeniable familiarity there, and Yuuri breathes it in. As he steps onto the ice, a ridiculous thought occurs to him. Perhaps the ice will reject me. I'll fall.

His skate stutters over a rough patch. A rookie's mistake. Almost instantly, a voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Celestino orders him to breathe. Breathe and just skate. Yuuri inhales deeply. Release.

The cold leeches slowly into his skin and he abandons his jacket at the bench. He skates a few laps until the shivering stops, then he pauses to consider his leg.

He is tempted to launch into a full program but Yuuri is not an idiot. He does the simple warmups the therapist had shown him, even laying off the figures he is sure he can do. 

When he came out here tonight he had thought a few laps and exercises would be enough to drive him to bed. But the adrenaline is just beginning to kick in, and there is a restlessness humming in his veins. Scooping his phone from where he left it on the barrier, he scrolls through his playlist. His thumb hovers over the one labelled simply: Program music.

His free and short programs had been done to the death before August but it seems like even death was not enough sometimes. He scrolls down to his exhibition skate music.

This one he had not practiced as much as he or Celestino would have liked. But they had chosen wisely - a skate from his junior days adapted to his current skill level. It had been a gold-winner, and one of the few things Yuuri holds confidence in even when he has none in himself.

The music trickles into the rink, tinny and soft in the space. He takes up position centre ice and lets his body move. 

The failed jump had aggravated his injury had set his progress back by weeks. But since the doctor had not forbidden ice-time, neither did Celestino. However in the days leading up to Yuuri's departure, he could feel his coach's penetrating gaze whenever he skated. It said a lot about Celestino's faith in him when he allowed him to go home, fully aware that there would be a rink at Yuuri's disposal. 

But here in Ice Castle there is no one but the walls to judge him. He twists into a spin, and carefully lowers himself into a sit, then a biellmann spin. It travels, but he does it. He pauses to catch his breath and test his ankle for strain. There is none. 

The music begins rising into the chorus and he automatically moves into the accompanying step sequence. It's a lead up into the first jump. A triple axel. 

A double at least, surely.

His mind is made up before he even realizes it. There is a second's delay, a moment of hesitation, but he leaps. The air rushes and winds around him as he rises to greet it. It is exhilarating. He has not known this feeling for months. 

The landing comes too soon - then he checks himself - he got all the revolutions in. A relieved gasp chokes out of him even though he has none to spare. 

Yuuri slips back into the fluid movements of the choreography but his mind is far from it. He could still do doubles. Perhaps next -

The music was rising in waves, signalling the chorus, and the next jump. Yuuri feels it at his core, winding up for a triple. 

He is not sure what happens a second later. Perhaps there had not been enough momentum. Perhaps it was his damned ankle, but more than likely it was that split-second burst of hesitation, when Celestino's face flashed through his mind. 

Whichever it is, it is too late when he feels the telltale twist mid-air of momentum lost too soon. His eyes fly open.

Oh -

The impact is fast and hard. It shudders up his side and sends him crashing towards the barrier where he bounces off and tumbles back towards the centre. It feels like an eternity before he finally slides to a stop. His jaw is locked open, stunned.

A sharp laugh bubbles up his throat - a single sound that bounces over and around him. Yuuri shuts his eyes. 

He cannot not be sure of how much time passes till they open again but it feels simultaneously like an age and a second. When they blink open there is a moment of dissonance, his brain failing to process the shadow that had fallen over him instead of the rink lights.

He yelps.

"Woah there, it's okay." The shadow is speaking as it retreats, as if afraid to spook a wounded animal. "It's okay," they repeat.

Yuuri knows that voice.

But it couldn't be.

His hands claw for purchase on the ice as he fights to sit up and confirm with his eyes what his mind already knows.

No. Not here. It can't be, he thinks wildly. His thoughts are scattered to the wind, rationality too far to sight. How was this even possible?

In this rink, he looked just as he did in the posters Yuuri kept - a king at home on his throne. Dressed in sweats, he looked a little less kingly than his posters but that handsome glow remained. Twin blue eyes blinked owlishly at him.

Victor. This was Victor Nikiforov. 

"You had quite the fall," Victor says slowly. "Are you hurting anywhere?"

No no no no. This can't be happening. Yuuri clambers to his feet, limbs scrabbling for purchase as he forces himself upright. He stumbles.

"Woah - careful." Arms slide around to catch Yuuri around his waist and Yuuri chokes.

"I'm fine," he repeats, pushing out of the hold. His skin chills as Victor's arms fall away. "You...why are..."

He trails off, lost, but Victor seems to understand what he wanted to say. Perhaps he is used to having this effect on people, used to having to complete their sentences in his head when eloquence evades them in his presence. 

"I just came in and I saw you. You were already falling then," Victor explains. His head cocks, and he steps back as if to study Yuuri better. "Was that a jump?"

There was no way in any of the nine hells above that Yuuri could admit to the quad race star that he was attempting jumps he could not land. This is his first rink, his home rink - but Yuuri already feels like the one trespassing while standing in it with Victor Nikiforov. Even if Victor is the one who should not be here - but for some inexplicable reason is - his sheer presence makes Yuuri feel small.

"Who are you, by the way?" Victor asks.

"I..." The words lodge in his throat.

He does not know how to say, "I was supposed to go to you."

He does not know how to say - "You should know me," - and there is an accusation in that one, but he is not sure who it blames.

And Yuuri - heart full with questions and even fuller with confusion and shame - flees. By the time he bursts into his bedroom he is almost done convincing himself it was all a hallucination. 

Falling into bed that night is like slipping into oblivion. When his eyes finally close he sees the bluest pair of eyes blinking at him behind the darkness of his own eyelids. They lull him to sleep, and Yuuri - Yuuri doesn't dream.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a long time coming.
> 
> Just to clarify:  
> 1) Vicchan is not alive. No particular reason for this except that I want to remain as true to canon as possible.  
> 2) This is set after Worlds. Victor won his fifth gold there as per canon, while Yuuri dropped out early in the same season. He dropped out of the GPF despite qualifying and therefore never met Victor until now.

There are mornings where a person wakes with an image in their head so clear it's as if it was burned into their retinas. Sometimes it's a dream that lingers before the inevitable fade away. Other times it is the last thing that person thought of or encountered before bed - and those stick around longer than dreams - the imprint is deeper, and it follows you into bed and out again. 

 

Winter eyes haunt Yuuri in and out of waking. He wakes to sunlight and blue, and either or both dazzles him so much that he falls out of bed. That is how Yuuri spends his first morning back home, with a new bruise to nurse and the spectre of Victor Nikiforov haunting him.

 

A spectre. A jetlag-induced vision. Temporary madness. He lists the possibilities while doubled over the bathroom sink, rinsing minty foam from his mouth. Anything is more believable than the idea, the very notion that Victor Nikiforov has come to his doorstep from half an ocean and a whole world away.

 

And isn't that just impossible?

 

Yuuri knows this perfectly, long-time Victor devotee he is. So the sight of Victor Nikiforov sitting in the dining room should not make him feel like having a breakdown right there and then. The Russian is wearing the inn's robes, holding his dog as he stares pensively at the TV. 

 

Sagan Tosu reruns are on.

 

Yuuri hesitates at the doorway. He takes a deep breath-

 

-and flees. You have to cut your losses, sometimes.

 

He spends the better part of the morning tiptoeing around the inn - to afraid to go to the rink and too afraid to stay in any one room. Mari tolerates this until lunch. She snags him in the middle of the nth circuit he's been making between the lobby and the dining hall and hauls him off. "At least help with the cleaning," she says grumpily. Yuuri is starting to develop new callouses from where his feet have been brushing against the tatami all day - the endless cycle of his anxiety.  

She shows him a forgotten corner of the inn a little ways from his room. There is no dust, but plenty of boxes that nobody knows holds what. 

"Been some shifting since you left. We pulled some stuff out when we cleaned your room and then it got mixed around with the other rubbish. I think there's four containing your things," she explains as they shuffle the boxes about. An umbrella falls from somewhere, stirring up clouds of dust that drift into Yuuri's face. He coughs.

"I'll unpack them in my room."

Yuuri waits till she's gone before opening the nearest one marked with his name. A familiar furl of paper sticks out of the corner. 

Opening it, he sighs with a mixture of relief and frustration. God knows how many people had seen its contents in the last five years he was gone. He bundles it into his arms and hurries towards his room. A violent sneeze erupts from his mouth midway.

Tears fill his eyes and his ears feel like they're stuffed with cotton. He takes a wobbly step forward and the box knocks into something solid that exclaims, "Oh!"

"S-sorry," Yuuri mutters faintly. His nose twitches. "Scuse' me - achoo!"

The sneeze is abrupt and explosive, sending the box toppling out of his arms and its contents onto the floor. Yuuri groans.

"Let me help you," he barely hears a man say. "Your glasses." Yuuri had not even noticed they had flown off till the stranger slips the frames back onto his face. The gesture surprises him.

"...Thanks," he says haltingly. Then he adds a little dumbly, "I still can't see you."

The stranger chuckles. Despite the temporary deafness, Yuuri thinks it sounds very pleasant. "I'm not surprised," they say. A tissue is pressed into his hand. "For your eyes. And nose."

Grateful, Yuuri blows his nose and dabs his eyes dry. Meanwhile the stranger picks up the spilled contents of his box. There is a shuffling sound as he stacks together what must be his posters. Yuuri blushes.

"It's alright, I can -" He freezes.

Later, he would blame it on Mari since she was the one who sent him to clean. But right now he blames his eighteen year old self. Young Yuuri had just reached the peak of his hormonal teens when he amassed such a collection and now present Yuuri had to pay for his life choices.

Victor Nikiforov stares unashamedly as he stacks the glossy posters into a neat (and very thick) pile, picks up the magazine cutouts and articles that flew out of a very meticulously labelled binder, and folds a crumpled t-shirt.

Naturally, all of these items were branded with either Victor's trademark smile or his name, in some form or other.

Victor packs them back into the box with a neatness that hints at his own brand of perfectionism and hands it back to Yuuri with a disarming smile, "I believe this is yours."

For the second time in twenty-four hours, Yuuri turns and flees from Victor Nikiforov. In his opinion, that is two times too many.

He remembers to bring the box. That at least - is a small consolation.

...

Later, Mari finds him sneaking around the reception area and interrogates him accordingly. 

"What do you want with the guest logs?" she asks, flicking her head and tapping an unlit cigarette against her lips. Yuuri has to wonder when and where he was when his sister decided to develop such a thuggish persona. Not that he was in any position to be judging anyone right this moment.

"Just looking," Mari raises one skeptical eyebrow. She isn't fooled anymore than he is.

"It seems...interesting. Inn-keeping. And stuff." He adds lamely, unable to hide his own wince. 

"Really," she remarks dryly. There is a rush of footsteps accompanied by the buzz of idle chatter as a group of guests climb down the stairs into the lobby. Yuuri ducks behind the reception. When he peeks back out a minute later his sister is still there, scrutinising him. Sheepishly, Yuuri emerges and slides the aforementioned log onto the table. The page is open to one Victor Nikiforov's booking application form. The date he arrived had been scratched out in his father's loopy handwriting. Beside it, a question mark sits where a departure date should have.

Mari stares at the page, then at him. "We've got more foreigners these days."

Yuuri keeps silent.

"Had a whole group from France last week, before you came. None of them spoke English though, so that was a pain." She taps Victor's form. "First time I've seen a Russian in here. He arrived two days before you...wonder what brought him here."

"Our advertising department sure is doing well," Yuuri says weakly, which earns him another arched eyebrow. Yutopia does not have an advertising department. They had Mari, whose definition of marketing was putting out a sign with his face on it. 

He lets her take the log from him, and she returns it to the drawer. They stare silently at one another for a good half a minute. Yuuri breaks first.

"Why is he here?"

Mari looks as surprised as he is by his own outburst. "Why aren't you asking him?" she shoots back.

"I...can't."

Mari's eyebrows arch so high he's almost afraid they will disappear into her hairline. "Can't?"

Instead of replying Yuuri ducks back under the counter, tucking his limbs close like a child in hiding. The stare Mari gives him is unreadable. Thankfully, she merely shifts her foot aside for him and all he hears is the admonishing crinkle of paper as she begins to sort through the files.

The group that had trooped down the stairs earlier returns to the lobby, their loud voices and footsteps announcing their entrance. He hears Mari click her tongue loudly and raise her voice at them, "Are you really bringing  _him_?"

There is a cackle of laughter, warm and screechy in the way only old men seem to manage. Someone replies, "We're touring im'."

"He wants to see the ninja house," someone else chuckles, prompting another bout of laughter.

Yuuri can almost hear Mari's eyebrows rising. "There are no ninjas."

"Exactly!"

They laugh some more and Mari just rolls her eyes. Clearly reluctant to continue the conversation with whoever is in the lobby, she lowers her voice to address Yuuri under the desk instead, "Look, if you have a question - just ask," she shrugs. "He seems harmless."

_"Who seems harmless?"_

Yuuri feels his heart lurch. He grabs Mari's ankle in a silent plea, or maybe desperation. On the other side of the counter, Victor's fingers tap a steady beat on the wood grain - Yuuri can  _feel_  it - pressed as tightly as he is against the desk.

Mari's leg leans deliberately against his side. She says to Victor, "Definitely not Matsumoto-san's gang. They're old, but you wouldn't guess it sometimes. Are you sure you sure you want to go with them?" The unspoken is implied: You? A naive foreigner?

Victor's chuckle is warm. "I think I'll manage."

"No one's gonna' pick you up if you fall asleep at the temple again."

"That was my first night, I know how to find my way back now," Victor protests.

Below the counter, Yuuri listens as keenly to this exchange as he can beneath the loud drum of his heart. There are two worlds colliding here - and both are his. Yuuri is not sure if he is equipped to deal with this cosmic collision. Above the counter, Victor and Mari continue talking with the ease of friends, completely unaware of the emotional turmoil beneath the desk.

"Whatever," Mari drawls. She is  _definitely_ rolling her eyes at Victor. Yuuri wants to pull her down and shake her by the shoulders. "Just so you know, we don't do accountability or...or whatever. Inn policy."

Victor laughs and something about its cadence throws Yuuri off. He has catalogued in his mind all the ways Victor laughs - bemusedly, flatteringly, casually, distantly. But none of them sound like this. 

Here, Victor sounds like a man, and quite unlike a legend.

"Besides," Victor continues casually, "If Momo-san and the others want to drink...well I certainly won't be the one getting lost on the way home." 

_Home?_

"Geez, go easy on them."

"Me? I'm just an innocent foreigner." Yuuri does not know how he knows, but he is almost certain Victor punctuates this with a wink. "Anyway, I wanted to ask if you would give Makkachin dinner. I might be out till late," Victor says. 

"Yeah, we'll feed him."

When Victor goes, Yuuri squeezes his sister's ankle. "Who's Momo-san?"

" _That's_  what you want to ask? He's a regular here named Matsumoto-san. Victor just botched it up. They think it's charming, I guess."

Yuuri ponders this quietly. Then he says, "He called this place home. Did you hear?"

'Seriously,  _that's_  what you want to ask?"

...

Yuuri takes his sister's advice. He goes looking for answers.

His fingers hover over the keyboard, uncertain. Google's search box taunts him with its blankness.

Perhaps this was not what Mari meant when she told him to  _ask_. It would be easy too - apparently Victor's room was just down the hall from his, in the old banquet room. When he heard this, Yuuri nearly attempted to climb an old plumbing pipe up to his bedroom window, before remembering that Victor was out. Still, he couldn't help but make a mad sprint from the stairs to his room, cringing with every floorboard that squeaked in his wake.

He begins to type tentatively. 

_victor nikiforov april 2016_

What follows is a very comprehensive collection of articles and reports on Victor's fifth Worlds title. Yuuri happily loses himself in that bottomless pit for a good twenty minutes before remembering the original objective. Reluctantly, he closed the video box of Victor's Worlds' free program. In all the commotion surrounding his return, he completely forgot to watch the competition.

Another quick search revealed that Victor had not updated any of his social media accounts since Worlds. Unheard of. Yuuri cricks his neck and opens a new search tab.

_where is victor nikiforov_

It takes a full minute of absent-minded scrolling before the startling truth hits him. It crashes into his mind like a comet sailing off-course, its impact every bit as sudden and electrifying.

Victor Nikiforov is at an inn, tucked into the sleepiest corner of Japan.

And Yuuri is the only one who knows. 

...

It doesn't last. The news breaks around evening. Up till then Victor's absence had been kept under the protective bubblewrap of the St. Petersburg rink. It began with a Russian broadcast, then the American networks picked up on it and suddenly the whole world was asking:

Where is Victor Nikiforov?

His phone has been buzzing insistently for hours. Phichit seems to think he's doing Yuuri a favour - keeping him updated with screenshots of tweets - each one an outlandish speculation of Victor's whereabouts.

There is even a hashtag for it, or so Phichit claims.

His phone buzzes impatiently again, so Yuuri gives in. Phichit has attached a video link this time. 

He presses play. A newscaster stares gravely at him, saying, "- his coach Yakov Feltsman has assured the media that he is fully aware of Nikiforov's whereabouts, but that his skater wished not to disclose his location to the public." 

The clip cuts to an interview with the Russian coach - a cold, stern man facing down the media frenzy. "He is taking time off until he finds his motivation again," he says gruffly into the mike. "Personally, I doubt he will be able to return if he takes a break now."

"While it seems Nikiforov is well," the newscaster continues, "The skating community has voiced its concern. What does his sudden disappearance bode for the next competitive season? Fans have expressed unhappiness over the possibility of Nikiforov retiring-"

Yuuri hits the pause button. He thinks of Victor, slipping his glasses over Yuuri's face like it was natural. He thinks of him sitting in a jinbei, holding his dog. He thinks of Mari, and how she has spoken at least twenty sentences more to Victor than he ever has. He thinks of Victor saying "home".

By the time the sun sinks back into the horizon - a streaking trail of orange and pinks in its wake - the knot in Yuuri's gut begins to loosen just the tiniest. He sits in his room, gazing up at the posters on his walls. Victor stares back at him. He traces one of the many sparkling smiles with a finger and the paper crinkles under his touch, but Victor - beautiful and whole in all the ways Yuuri admires - is a wonder to look at. 

The knot unfurls a little more. 

...

The moon is high that night so Yuuri doesn't bother with the lights. Moonlight guides him as he navigates the rink, but even without it he thinks he could find his way around blind. Some things never leave you.

The restlessness of the night before is absent and his chest is light. But he feels it deep beneath his veins, the buzz of anticipation. 

 _Competition-ready_ , Celestino had called it. After five years of shepherding Yuuri around at competitions, the Italian had become intimately familar with Yuuri's moods, even if he did not understand all of them.

 _But this one is the best_ , Celestino had said too.  _It's the one that gets you onto the podium. Hold on to it, Yuuri._

Yuuri holds fast now. Then he jumps.

(There is a moment before every jump where time slows. The skater's world narrows into that single, stretched second, and in that second - they know.)

 

This jump will land, Yuuri realises. 

 

And it does. So the crashing sound that comes next does not make sense. It startles him so badly he falls right out of the landing. 

 

"Oh!" A voice says. "Sorry!"

 

_It was the door_ , Yuuri realises after a beat, heartbeat thundering in his ears. The silence had made it so much louder.

 

_A cruel pattern is emerging here_ , he thinks as he sees Victor approach - because of course it was him. It has only been less than twenty-four hours, but Yuuri has fallen twice before the same person. 

 

On cue, Victor appears at his side, a hand stretched out towards his face. Yuuri ignores it and clambers back to his feet.

Victor retracts his forgotten hand slowly, glancing up at Yuuri's face then back to it with a curious expression - as if he cannot quite understand something. "Hello again. We seem to be making a habit of running into each other."

"S-sorry."

"What are you sorry for...? Hey, where are going - Yuuri!"

Yuuri nearly trips over his skates. He turns around and gives Victor a disbelieving look.

Pleased to have caught his attention, Victor says again, "Yuuri."

Yuuri had only ever dreamed of hearing his name on Victor's lips. His heart stutters at the way he drags the U out, almost like a caress.

"Y-you know me," he says. Or asks. He never knows which way is up or down these days, where Victor Nikiforov is concerned. 

Victor beams. "Yes! Your family runs the inn."

_Oh. Of course._

"I'm Victor."

"I know," Yuuri says shortly. If Victor notices the quiet snap in his tone he doesn't acknowledge it. Instead he makes a knowing little hum that makes Yuuri want to snap some more.

"You should be careful with jumps," Victor continues conversationally when the moment for Yuuri to answer passes without one. "Especially when there is no one else around." Here he pauses and his voice takes on a teasing lilt. "Lucky for you I was here. What if you had broken something?"

Somehow this rubs him a little raw. He mumbles something like "Lucky me," and skates towards the exit.

Victor follows him, easily picking up the threads of conversation like Yuuri had never snipped them. Yuuri is very good at snipping. "So you skate? I skate too."  _Well we're both standing in a rink_ , Yuuri thinks a little sourly. Two and two make four.

Victor hovers over him as he puts on his skate guards, marveling at his gear. "You're dedicated," He says, and the surprise is evident. "That brand is very popular with competitive skaters."

"Is that so." Yuuri says miserably, all bitterness gone. There is only the hurt left. 

Speaking of hurt. His ankle had been twinging since the fall. Yuuri rolls up his pant leg to probe the muscle beneath the ankle band, wrapped like a protective warmer around it. He was only too aware of Victor lingering nearby, watching him.

"You're injured? And you still skated?"

There is not a competitive figure skater Yuuri knows that has not skated on an injury, and Victor Nikiforov - unbeatable as he is - is no exception. It only rubs in the truth of this moment. He is no competitor in Victor's eyes. 

"It's fine." He replies. It is not really an answer, but Yuuri has none to give anyway.

Victor hums at this, long and considering. Like he had just observed something fascinating about an unknown creature, and has come to a conclusion. "You must love it. You're here despite being injured...and the lateness."

 _There is an opening here_ , Yuuri realises. _If only I take it._

"It _is_  late," he agrees almost affably and Victor looks surprised. It is probably the warmest response he has gotten so far. Yuuri continues, "It's too late for most people to be skating. So why are you...?" He gives Victor a side-wards glance, silent and telling.

Without the lights, the shadows were deeper where they stood rink side. Beside them was one of the rink's famed windows - stretched tall and dreamlike. The moon was high. It splashed its light over Victor's face, making a strange sculpture of it - shadows where there should be light. It should not have, but it took Yuuri's breath away. Victor was a mystery and looked like it.

_You shouldn't be here_ , Yuuri wants to say.  _But there you are_.

The smile Victor gives is small and secretive. He says quietly, "Why - same reason as you - I bet."

There is the tail end of a cold snap outside as April draws to its end. Ice melts and flowers will soon burst from buds, anew. That is the cycle, year to year.

Victor Nikiforov knows not the easy repetition of cycle. He is the storm that breaks unexpectedly through clouds overcast.

Yuuri does not know if he can weather it.

 

...

 

Yuuri runs again that night, but he manages an excuse before hightailing it so that's an improvement. He goes downstairs the next day and hesitates by the doorway just like the morning before. He makes his decision. A blue-eyed stare locks onto him as he makes a beeline for the table. 

 

"I thought you would run again."

 

There is no dignified way to reply that, so Yuuri does not try. He picks up his chopsticks and pretends to be interested in his fish. Victor's stare is palpable from across the table. After a full minute of this, Yuuri abandons both his breakfast and any attempts at pretense. The chopsticks clack sharply as he sets them down.

 

"Why are you here?"

 

For a long, frozen moment, Yuuri wants to take it back, certain that he has said something dreadfully wrong.

 

Victor's smile is a little skewed, as if he forgot to hold it in place. He says, "Pardon me?"

 

"Just -" He licks his lips. Once. Then again. "I've seen the news. Are you - maybe...are you not supposed to be here?"

 

Victor laughs then. The smile slips back into place somewhere in between, and Yuuri cannot help but stare. "You make me sound like a wanted man." There is something careless about his laugh that irks Yuuri. Like a man who has heard the same joke one too many times, but makes the same automatic giggle anyway. 

 

_Definitely wanted_ , Yuuri manages not to say out loud. But that's the thing. The world is wanting for Victor, but Victor is not answering. Instead he is standing against the backdrop of Yuuri's humble childhood home, watching Sagan Tosu reruns like it matters.

 

Victor gives an easy shrug. "But I suppose I know what you mean. I'm here on travel, you could say."

 

Yuuri leans forward. "Approved travel?", he asks before he can stop himself.

 

"Oh Yuuri," Victor laughs again. This one sounds a little maddening in more ways than one. "Shouldn't you ask; "For business or pleasure?" instead?" Then he bats his eyelashes just a little, and Yuuri is overwhelmed by two very strong feelings. The first is annoyance, and the second is too embarrassing to be named.

 

To his credit, he is more surprised by the former.

 

"To which I would reply you, 'Definitely pleasure'. But I suppose business is unavoidable. Ice Castle is very nice...and very near." He takes a long sip from his cup then, while Yuuri waits. A long moment passes before he realises that Victor has nothing left to say.

 

Yuuri hasn't anything to say either. He picks up his chopsticks again and retreats into his mind space to pick apart Victor's words. Travel, he'd said. But that is not so strange, is it? Plenty of people take vacations. So why does it still feel so impossible to have him there, right across the table?

 

Victor catches his eye and holds it. Yuuri hesitates, then looks away.

 

Perhaps the coincidence is too big. Yuuri knows Victor, has known his name for years and yet here he is, a dream realised in the flesh. Or perhaps it's the fact that the two of them belong to a particular world, far from this little town, where the stadium lights are harsh and the ground unforgiving. 

 

But Yuuri is the only one who knows this, and it's killing him.

 

"It's off-season now, after all." Victor says suddenly. Yuuri jumps. 

 

"Sorry?"

 

"Off-season," Victor repeats. "So a vacation is not completely out of place." Victor tilts his head then, considering. "I assume you know what I'm referring to?"

 

"...yes. I'm...familiar with the sport." 

 

"I thought so." Victor's eyes twinkle with just a hint of knowing. It makes Yuuri flush, and he recalls the box he'd shoved under his bed yesterday in a fit of panic and embarrassment.

 

But Victor doesn't push the matter any further, and he does not mention the box, so neither does Yuuri. Still - an awareness hangs between them, unspoken.

 

"So Yuuri, what is it you do exactly?" Victor asks, turning the subject around so swiftly it surprises him. The question makes him wonder. He scratches at his wrapped ankle. What  _is_  he doing, exactly? 

 

"I'm here visiting my family," the words tumble out before he can really think about them. "I study in Detroit."

 

He watches Victor watch him curiously, "Are there ice rinks there?"

 

Yuuri considers his answer carefully. "A few."

 

"Skate in any of them?"

 

"...Sometimes."

 

Yuuri was loathe to lie to Victor's face. But laying in bed last night after his encounter with Victor in the rink, he had come to a resolute decision: Victor must never know.

 

Not yet, at least. 

 

(Yuuri has it all panned out in his head, see. Victor is a character in this story, and his entrance scene is not here against the backdrop of his childhood home. He belongs somewhere several chapter later - on a podium a step above or maybe, maybe, maybe - below Yuuri. It's straightforward. Every narrative has a structure, stitched together with little plot points. Yuuri would know, he excelled at essay-writing.)

 

For whatever reason, Victor had come to him, even though hadn't meant to. But Yuuri has always known he was meant to go to Victor. This part of his story - he can still control. Control is very important to Yuuri.

 

"You looked pretty experienced on the ice," Victor continues saying.  

 

"My childhood friends got me into it, they own the rink now. Hasetsu is small and the rink is big - most people here at least know how to skate," he replies carefully. Truthfully.

 

Victor continues looking at him expectantly, like he knows Yuuri has more to say. So he blurts out, "I dance." It isn't a lie. When he isn't skating, he's dancing. He spent most of his college life in Detroit learning every kind of dance he could. 

 

"Oh?" Victor's leans forward. "So you're a dancer."

 

"Even longer than I've been skating."

 

_If a truth isn't whole is it still the truth?_

 

His phone chirps then, and both their eyes dart to the lighted screen at Yuuri's elbow. The sender's name glares brightly at Yuuri for two long seconds before he snatches it up and folds a protective palm over the light.

 

Victor tilts his head low to the side, silver falling over his eyes. Yuuri hears a question where there are no words. He lifts his palm slightly, just enough for him to see.

 

_**Coach Celestino** : I'm free to take that call now. Whenever you're ready._

 

Victor is still staring at him when he looks up. For a moment, Yuuri is filled with equal parts of dread and hope.

 

_Did you see?_  He thinks a little desperately,  _do you know?_

 

But Victor is still looking at him with that curious, empty expression. Yuuri tells himself he is not disappointed. "Excuse me, I need to make a call."

 

Victor nods. "Please, don't mind me."

 

So Yuuri doesn't. He leaves to enclose himself in his room, and spares a minute with his ear pressed against the wood - listening. Finally, he sinks into his desk chair and dials a familiar number. As the dial tone rings, his fingers find purchase on a stray thread sticking out of his sweater. He pulls.

 

"Coach? Thanks for getting back to me."

 

_Pull. Pull_.

 

..No, I'm fine. Well, I'm just - i just -"

 

_Pull_.

 

"I wanted to discuss the upcoming season. I think...I think it's time."

 

_Snap_.

 

"I want to go back to Detroit."

 

 

 


End file.
